In Croatian literature today there are books which receive far too easily all kinds of awards, and their authors are given lots of media space. Before us we have a book that most likely will not be seeing anything of the above. However, this book will be a lasting one, outliving by far the mentioned books. Without hollow exaltation it has cut deep into the Bosnian reality revealing all its layers. Those who are not from there everything might seem exotic, and to those who have shared a similar experience everything will appear to be as a reality which they too often have failed to see. Kocaj is an expert in writing, and he skilfully leads the reader through the labyrinths of events, through seven layers of one and the same, reality.

It is nice to dream. It is nice to aspire. Trouble arises when our dreams and our aspirations tend to become somebody else's too. And that is exactly what has been happening to the Croatian nation (I am not going to talk about the other neighbouring nations). There are those who still dream the Yugoslavian dream and wish it would become a reality. It needs not be called that, it can also be named the Western Balkan dream or something along those lines. If someone represents different ideas, they scowl and label everything as nationalism, reactionism or something alike.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina everything is yet more sharply defined. The dreamers from all spheres seem to have found their heartland here. They compete with each other who is going to have a more exuberant dream. Years later, they cold-bloodedly admit they were wrong and move on as if nothing has happened. Let me just mention the recent statement given by the American Ambassador. For the first time the Dayton has been criticised. However, there has been no mention of punishment for those who imposed it, nor is there the urge to redress the wrong done. Therefore, the process is miming, running..., and we are slowly getting older and becoming more tired. What we have left is hope in new, fresh blood.

Contemporaneity has been increasingly forcing us to reflect on things that we should not, in actual fact, be even thinking about: are we mere consumers and, at the same time, consumer goods themselves, or are we beings with a past, a present und a future? In his book Dodiri, smjene (Touches, Shifts) Antun Lučić chooses the latter. He is aware of the fact that the orientations of a given period pass, and that that which remains is the good and the great accomplished by someone. Leaning on this thought he wrote twelve discussions and presented the same in the shape of a book. He arranged them in two sections — »Smjenjivo« and »Ruho« (»The Dispensable« and »Attire«). If we take a closer look at them, we notice that the first section deals with universal topics, while the second with national ones. It looks as though he wants to say that we should be open to everything around us, but that, at the same time, we should be open to ourselves too.